


These Men Of Mine

by leashy_bebes



Category: Sherlock Holmes (Downey films)
Genre: F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-10
Updated: 2012-02-10
Packaged: 2017-10-30 21:14:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/336234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leashy_bebes/pseuds/leashy_bebes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Holmes arrives needing Watson's professional services. Mary POV.</p>
            </blockquote>





	These Men Of Mine

I was seated in the parlour engaged in the thoroughly unabsorbing task of answering letters when the doorbell rang, chiming brightly through the house. Distantly, I heard our maid Lizzie passing along the corridor and opening the front door. Expecting only a walk-in patient seeking my husband, I returned to my letters, only to be well and truly diverted from them when Lizzie's horrified scream rang through the house.

Setting pen and paper aside, I hurried from the parlour. Being married to a doctor and living above his practice has inured me somewhat to the unpleasantness of many injuries, but I was not expecting this.

Sherlock Holmes, thinner than I had ever seen him, holding himself upright with a white-knuckled grip on the doorframe while a wound on his temple bled sluggishly, adding fresh red to the rusty mess that covered the left side of his face like a veil. 

"Ah, Mrs Watson," he said as I approached. "You look particularly lovely today, if it does not stretch propriety over-much to say so."

"Mr Holmes – "

"I fear I find myself once again in need of your good husband's professional services. If it's not too much trouble."

I hurried forward to take his arm and ushered him carefully over the threshold. Lizzie had always been an excitable girl, but this close, I could pardon her cry. Even aside from the blood, Holmes looked dreadful. His skin was an unhealthy grey under the grime, but there was a burning-black unholy light blazing in his eyes. 

"Lizzie, fetch the doctor, please."

"He's with a patient now, ma'am."

"He will not resent the interruption. Tell him Mr Holmes requires his urgent attention. Now please, Lizzie."

"You are too kind, my dear," he told me, swaying on his feet. His knees folded for a second and he swayed towards me. I braced herself to try and hold his weight, but the silly, stubborn man deliberately moved away from me. I grasped the ragged lapels of his jacket and offered a small prayer of thanks when I heard my husband's step upon the stair.

"Oh, for heaven's sake," John tutted, affection and humour obvious in his voice. "What have you done to yourself now, you ridiculous man? Unhand my wife."

"Watson," Holmes said in a ragged approximation of his most offended voice, as John darted forward and took Holmes by the forearms, looking at him carefully. "I have been a model of propriety, as ever."

That said, he promptly keeled forward, his face landing on John's shoulder. For a moment John just steadied him and then looks at me over Holmes's bowed head. After a second, John laughed.

"Ridiculous man," he repeated. "I don't think dragging him up the stairs by his hair – however fit a retribution for his interruption of our last three meals out – is quite the right course from a medical point of view. If you don't mind, my love, I might deposit him in the parlour."

I moved to aid my husband in dragging along Holmes's deadweight. One of my charges had had a father all too fond of drink, and that was what it reminded me of as we helped him along. Holmes roused as I slipped from under his arm to open to door, and he attempted some small protest. I shushed him instinctively, and was unsure whether Holmes was more surprised by my boldness, or John by his friend's obedience. Whatever the case, Holmes held his tongue, and between us, we manage to deposit him on the couch. Holmes groaned on his way down, one hand clutching his ribs.

"He is not much harmed," John assured me (and maybe himself) after a quick examination. "I must placate the colonel and his gout," he added, squeezing my fingertips. "I shall send Lizzie along with some hot water and be back in a moment."

By the time John returned, Holmes had lapsed into unconsciousness again. Unable to bear doing nothing, I had taken up the bowl of warm water recently delivered by the maid, and wetted my handkerchief to clean the worst of the grime from Holmes's face. I heard the soft noise of John clearing his throat and startled, wondering how long he had stood there, and what the origin was of the tender expression on his face.

"I shall leave you to your patient," I told him as I stood, leaving my bloodied handkerchief floating in the bowl. "And maybe see what can be done to soothe the colonel's ruffled feathers."

John smiled at me, already rolling his shirt sleeves up and unpacking his medical bag. I closed the door quietly behind myself and hurried up the stairs on quiet feet to pass along some quiet message of consolation to Colonel Williams. It was not the first time that I had made excuses to my husband's patients after Holmes had captured his attention. I found I did not resent it, though. The work they did together was important, but more important still was what they meant to each other. If not for John, Holmes would see no reason not to give in to the more destructive parts of his personality, and if not for Holmes, then John would be lost to memories of old horrors instead of striving to vanquish new ones.

By the time I had finished pouring oil on trouble waters, the colonel was more than happy to wait. I sent Lizzie to provide the man with tea and hurried back to the parlour. I rapped lightly on the door with my knuckles before I entered and found John standing over the couch where Holmes was now covered in a blanket with a neat row of stitches above his eye. He looked beyond exhausted and thoroughly asleep.

John didn't bother to lower his voice as he tidied away his equipment and told me, "There. That's him patched up."

"What are we to do with him?" I asked, concerned.

"Oh, there is nothing at all to be done with _him_ , believe me," John said briskly.

"John – "

"Do not concern yourself, Mary. Even Holmes can only ignore the limits of his physiology for so long. He will sleep, he will refuse to eat, and he will be on his way."

And that, I thought mildly, simply would not do. 

Ours had never been the most conventional household – patients called at all hours, with all manner of complaints, and that was without Holmes's frequent visits, whisking John away on some urgent case – so I thought nothing of remaining in the parlour and finishing my letters while John attended to his afternoon patients. He had been gone long enough for me to drink two cups of tea and write three and a half letters when Sherlock Holmes awoke with a great, startled grunt.

"Ah," he said without looking at me, pressing a hand to his side again. "Ribs bound, wound stitched, and a faint aroma of jasmine perfume on the air. Hello, Mrs Watson."

"Admirably deduced, Mr Holmes," I told him lightly. "Am I to assume you do not remember your arrival?"

"I'm rather afraid not," he said apologetically. "I can only hope I did not cause embarrassment."

"You are always welcome here, Mr Holmes, whether in need of medical attention or not."

He was silent at that, the carefully neutral look on his face assuring me that he was turning my words about in his mind, finding every possible fact that could be deduced from them. Before he could make any of his pronouncements, I rang the bell and asked Lizzie to furnish us with a fresh pot of tea and some toast. John may have said that Holmes would not eat, but I had other ideas.

"I am not hungry," Holmes announced, and once more, I saw what my husband meant about this man being an infuriating mixture of godlike genius and childish ego.

"I wish you to take some tea and toast with me, Mr Holmes," I told him pleasantly, and moved to the table, pouring a cup for us both. When I was finished Holmes was still seated on the edge of the couch, blanket curled tightly around his shoulders. I fixed him with a significant look. 

"Do not turn those governess's eyes on me, woman! They hold no terror for me."

" _Mr_ Holmes. Some tea. And some toast."

His eyes narrowed and flickered over my form as though he was looking for some small flaw to throw at me. Instead, with great dignity for a man swaddled in a blanket, he deigned to join me at the table and even to take a sip of tea from the cup I nudged towards him.

"Most pleasant, thank you," he assured me. 

"And now some toast," I said.

For a moment, I was certain he would protest, but no. When John rejoined us some fifteen minutes later Holmes was finishing his third slice of toast, and John stopped in his tracks.

"You're _eating_."

"Most of us do," Holmes reminded him and I had to hide a smile.

"You have a case, Holmes. Normally I can't persuade him to stop for breath, let alone food," John advised me, setting his hand on my shoulder.

Holmes smiled and toasted us with his teacup. "Indeed. One wonders how we ever survived without Mrs Watson's civilising influence, hmm, old boy?"

John squeezed my shoulder gently and said, "One does indeed," before joining us at the table and snatching the last piece of toast from Holmes's questing fingertips. Holmes pouted and a clatter from under the table informed me that they were engaged in a battle to stomp on each other's feet.

I smiled at them both; these ridiculous boys, these remarkable men of mine.


End file.
